


dancing in the night with you

by chancellor_valdez



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: 5 + 1, Dancing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, they're just some kids dancing and falling in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:40:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24122989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chancellor_valdez/pseuds/chancellor_valdez
Summary: “Kie,” he grinned.“JJ,” she responded, tone even and eyes bored. She smelled mischief on him.He reached for her hand, capturing her thin fingers quickly in his. “Dance with me.”(5 times Kiara danced with JJ + 1 time she didn't)
Relationships: JJ/Kiara (Outer Banks)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 384





	dancing in the night with you

1.  
The day was a typical day that bled into a typical night. 

The kind of time that felt entirely _usual._

The air inside The Wreck was warm and ticklish, while she swept up the floors and wiped down tables after close. She could feel the weight of it on the back of her neck. Soft music played through crackling speakers. The boys sat huddled together at the single table in the corner, eating cold leftovers and talking too loud. 

The usual nights were her favorite. 

A cold fry hit the back of her head. 

“JJ, stop it,” she sighed without turning around. She didn’t need to. 

“It was Pope.” 

“No, it wasn’t,” Pope said. 

“Dude, come on.”

She swept up the fry. “You know I don’t have to let you eat here, for _free_ , right?”

“Come on Kie you wouldn’t let us starve.”

“Yeah, you love us too much,” John B. pointed out. There was a distracting amount of grease on his chin. 

“I wouldn’t be so sure…” she mumbled, emptying the dustpan into the trash. The fry fell to the bottom. Part of her wanted this to be the rest of her life. Her and her boys and the OBX. It was too nice, too normal, and too good. The other part knew better. And sometimes she was afraid of what would happen when it was time to grow up. 

That night, at least, she wasn’t. That night she didn’t much care about tomorrow.

The radio faded out and a new song faded in, a familiar melody flickering against her skin in the way that made her want to move. So she did. 

“Hey dad, turn that up,” she called. The music dipped and she swayed along the tiniest bit, the broom a steady partner in her hand as it slid with her along the floor. She sang the words to herself and then out loud and she was spinning closer to the boys, their own voices picking up as they recognized the song. 

A beat, a step, a turn. 

JJ whistled. 

She knew it was JJ because… well, JJ, and then the whistle was followed by a low chuckle and, “I love when we get dinner and a show.”

She couldn’t really say the thought that moved her to do it, made her choose him to dance with, not like it was a big deal. She danced with John B all the time. She’d danced with Pope. They shifted and slipped around each other like goofy fucking kids all the time.

Maybe it was the shit eating grin on his face, or his feet on the table for the third time. Hell, it might have been the wind or just the music for all she knew, but her chest felt light and the music pushed her shoulders and tonight was a good night to laugh. 

So she spun twice in his direction and gave him her best smile as she pulled him to his feet. He protested, but only about as much as JJ can protest getting to dance with a hot girl. (Which is not very much.)

She led him through tables and he followed her every step, laughing. 

JJ knew how to dance with girls. Well, JJ knew how to do a lot of things with girls as he would gladly venture to tell you, but he really knew how to dance with girls. 

That being said, it did not make him a good dancer. 

He had the rhythm you would expect from a cheeky blond in North Carolina, which she couldn’t much blame him for, and, like most things he did, the movements he made still found a way to be just a little bit exaggerated. But he knew how to get just close enough, how to tilt his hips in just a certain way, how to trail a rough hand down a girl’s back and make her laugh at a dirty joke. 

JJ was fun and girls liked fun, so girls liked JJ. 

He pressed a palm to her hip and spun her around himself wildly, just managing to catch her fingertips before she stepped too far away from him. He pulled her back by a string. For that one second, Kiara was just a girl. 

They danced around each other, with their heads falling back in laughter, and when their three minutes were up and the song faded back into silence, she felt his breath ghost over her left cheek and she couldn’t help, but smile. 

And he couldn’t help smirking back.

Pope and John B. gave an applause from their seats. JJ gave a bow and another wink for good measure. 

She shoved at his shoulder and pretended her heart didn’t stutter just a bit.

(She decided later she should probably dance with JJ more.)

.

.

.

2.  
The boneyard was packed with sweating teenagers desperate to kill a handful of brain cells. 

First keggers of the summer usually were. Something about the sticky, warm night and their newfound freedom pulled the surf rats and the island elite toward the patch of sand like hounds sniffing out booze, bud, or a hot summer lay. 

OBX level ten, home of the horndogs, beach bums, and all around good timers.

(See: JJ Maybank.)

Kie had her fifth beer in her hand and toes in her sand.

Sand in her toes. 

She felt altogether lovely and decent. As decent as one pogue can be at a boneyard kegger. Like maybe her body was made of seafoam and if she really wanted to, she could just float away. Good. 

Drunk.

“Don’t get me started on single use plastic,” she sighed. The girl next to her nodded like she was paying attention, but her eyes told another story. Kie gulped down more warm beer. Somehow she didn’t mind.

Music thumped, barely audible over the hum of laughter and crashing waves. The way it should be. The rest of her drink slid down her throat like battery acid and mixed with lemonade. She’d sing about this one day. These blurred polaroid shots of youth burned into her memory and she’d remember feeling like this. Like a Pogue.

Suddenly, JJ found her, sweeping around her shoulder and positioning himself in front of her. Lit by the dim fire, the ends of his blonde hair looked orange, like maybe he too was burning.

“Kie,” he grinned.

“JJ,” she responded, tone even and eyes bored. She smelled mischief on him. 

He reached for her hand, capturing her thin fingers quickly in his. “Dance with me.”

“What?” she started to ask, but he was already leading her closer to the music and she followed him anyway, barely slowing down to hand off her drink to somebody else. There was something to be said for trust amongst Pogues. 

They stopped in the sand and he stepped around her. He turned with a glint in the very corner of his eye. She swayed against him and they danced, drunk and sorta clumsy. Music tilted, medium tempo, deep bass, the kind that somehow made your heartbeat feel louder than it was. 

His eyes shifted and the bud of suspicion bloomed. She pulled closer, then farther away.

“What are we doing?” 

“We’re dancing, Kie.” 

“Yes, that much I got. But why?” she pressed. This was definitely a JJ thing. There was no way this could be anything normal and not-JJ.

“I wanted an excuse to grind on you.”

“Ew, JJ,” she groaned, rolling her eyes and smacking the back of her hand against his shoulder.. 

He chuckled as he wrapped his hand against her hip. “There’s a girl over there.”

Her head fell back. “Do not tell me you are trying to make some poor girl jealous. JJ that is so demeaning.”

“Chill, Kie. I’m a good boy,” he winked. “Nah, there’s this chick following me around, sloppy as hell, won’t really take the hint and I don’t want to be mean.”

She snorted. “Since when do you have a problem being mean? Or turning down hot girls?”

“Sometimes it feels like you don’t love me?”

“Only sometimes?”

“Ha,” he pointed at her heartily. “She’s got jokes.”

She sighed into his space, feet stepping and moving around each other in warm shifting sand.

“Spill it, Maybank.”

“Maybe I’m just not feeling it, _Kiara_ ,” if he could pur her name, that’s what it would have sounded like. 

She put her hands on his chest. “Doubtful.”

“Or maybe she’s a full Kook and I don’t want the mess,” he sighed. He sounded far away. Or was it too close?

Her arms wound around his neck like cords. Like delicate brown snakes. 

“So, I’m saving you from having to reject a pretty rich girl,” she hummed, humor in the corners of her mouth. The way she was with JJ, the way you just couldn’t help being. The boy was an adrenaline shot to the heart and he hid pieces of sunshine in his fists, if you were lucky enough to catch them. 

“My hero.” A laugh, then a hiccup. 

She moved even closer still, pressed on by the feeling of his fingers on her sides through her cotton t-shirt. “Better make it good then,” she whispered, giving him her best lovestruck teenage heartbreaker smile. 

She could play pretend. 

His grin mirrored hers, trimmed in devilish black and smoke, and oh to be a girl JJ Maybank flashed that smile at. 

She could laugh at the thought, if her cheeks weren’t feeling a tad bit warm, but that was probably the beer, or their chaotic dancing, or a Frankenstein mixture of both.

For just one second he beamed at her like a drunken, sun-kissed boy in love. His face bent close to her ear. She could have sighed, if she was the kind of girl that sighed at boys like him.

(Which she wasn’t.)

“Coast is clear,” he told her, soft voice tickling the hair on her neck.

Spell broken, drunk magic gone, reality returned. Normal Kie, Normal JJ, with a normal amount of distance between them. 

“Thank you for your service,” he saluted her.

She couldn’t help her head falling back and a rumbling laugh from finding its way out into the night. Her knees bent in a mock curtsey. “My pleasure.” 

He laughed back and then he was running off again, weaving through people and out of her sight. She followed the red cap until it was gone. Something felt different and she picked her way through bodies and back to the keg.

She sat down next to Pope, breathing in the scent of the cut. Weed, dirt, sweat, and sand. 

“What was that all about?” he asked. 

“Usual Pogue duty, helping JJ avoid his fanbase.” She leaned back on her elbows stretching her long legs out in front of her.

“That fanbase?” he laughed.

She followed Pope’s eyes across the beach to where JJ stood with his arm slung around the shoulders of a short brunette wearing a single string of pearls. The girl giggled. JJ licked his lower lip.

Well, she should have known better. 

“That shit,” she snorted, closing her eyes and letting the buzz tickle down her limbs.

Later, she tasted orange peels.

.

.

.

3.  
Bob Marley was playing over the HMS Pogue speakers and the sun painted the water blood orange and peach, trimmed in gold.

Kie sighed.

They’d caught a decent amount of drum by mid-afternoon and what followed was cold beer, sticky bowls, and salt water. Now she hummed and watched the way the surface of the ocean moved and the sky descended around them. _A good day for a good for nothing Pogue_ , she thought.

Pope was still reading Kafka, because he was still Pope. The magic of the OBX and the ambience of being young and stupid in the summer could distract his attention. But Pope was always ready to leave, one foot outside the city line. It made sense. She couldn’t really blame him.

She stepped around him, placing her hand briefly on the top of his head to rustle his cap. 

JJ and John B. were arguing about who could shotgun a beer faster (JJ) and she figured it would soon devolve into a very manly show of sport and two beer soaked t-shirts.

(It did.)

She watched the boys, her boys, and she was content. Content and quite happy with her existence within everything. Happy. She couldn't keep the smirk from her face. 

Another song strummed against her ribs, thumped with her heart beat and the movement of the boat. She lifted her arms.

“Who’s that hot thing?” JJ asked, before grabbing her around the middle and spinning them in circles.

She squealed, kicking out her legs, until he put her down. And then, when he did, he smirked at her the same way she’d seen him smirk at every senseless girl he wanted to mack on. JJ, always a charmer.

She shimmied closer, moving her body before his until she was just in front of his nose. His breath caught. She hovered, only for a second, right in front of his eyes, before pushing against his chest and moving away. Her hips swayed with each step backwards. 

His hand went to his chest, over his heart in mock hurt, but his grin was the kind of thing the devil might wear. Crooked lips, eager eyes.

She turned her back to him, lifting her hair off her neck to smirk at him over her shoulder.

It made John B. howl and Pope groan.

It made JJ grin like a dying man that can’t wait for freedom. 

It lit a spark in her stomach. She might have liked it.

Obviously, JJ had a thing for her and obviously, she knew that. But JJ had a thing for her the way JJ had a thing for most warm bodies. It wasn’t personal.

(She told herself it wasn’t personal because she had to tell herself that.)

The music moved and she moved with it, stepping towards and away and around. He followed her, first with his eyes and then with his feet, that stupid grin on his face the whole time, turning her tummy to jelly. 

One of the boys played drums to the beat against the side of the boat, John B. Pope had managed to put down the book and was dancing with himself in his seat. There was laughter and a healthy dose of companionship dancing with them too. 

JJ took his turn to sway closer. The music pushed him note by note and she could feel his breath on her neck. She could see the sweat on his upper lip. And then she was looking at his mouth, his lips turned to the side and uneven at the corner. She looked at his mouth and if she were a different girl, if she were anyone else at all probably, she would have wanted to kiss him right then. But she’s not.

(Is she?)

Her shoulders mirrored his and they wove together like rope and ribbon.

Somebody chuckled and his head fell to her chest, shaking like a wet dog.

She shoved his face away, laughing loudly into the night.

“Get out!”

He caught her fingers and held them to his chest for a single second and then he let his body fall back, dazed and laughing. That boy had the devil in him and the devil was a beautiful, cheeky, bastard.

“When you gonna give in, Kie?”

“Give in to what?” she asked, still rocking her hips and humming.

“The sexual tension,” he winked.

She stopped to snort, “never.”

At the same time, Pope said, “yeah right.”

He kept smiling, just for her.

“When are you gonna give it up, JJ?” she sighed. If she was being honest, in a complete way, she would admit she didn’t want him to. 

He looked right at her, right into her brown eyes. “Never,” he said, like it was that easy. Like forever was something real.

She only shook her head. 

“It’s a lost cause, bro,” John B. slapped him on the shoulder, but JJ was still looking at her. Something in his gaze was soft, like he knew it wasn’t true, or maybe he just hoped. It was there one second and gone the next and he was regular JJ again, pushing John B. away and scrambling for a beer. 

She felt like a maybe, and a maybe not. 

And honestly, she had no fucking idea what that was supposed to mean. 

A beer can cracked, the sun kept setting, and Kie kept dancing.

(When John B. turned the boat around to take them home and she sat with her feet on JJ’s lap, she looked at his mouth again, on purpose this time. Just a glance and she decided, under very specific circumstances, she probably wouldn’t mind kissing JJ.)

.

.

.

4.  
They were supposed to check in yesterday. 

Yesterday.

Now it was sixteen hours later and they still hadn’t heard from John B. and Sarah over the radio and Kie was, well, she was fucking stressed. With the way the last year had been going she’d probably go prematurely grey or die of a stroke before she hit 25. 

She still hadn’t been home, her mom might actually kill her this time. She couldn’t just leave, they were waiting. 

Pope was waiting on the couch, JJ was waiting by the radio, and Kie was waiting on the porch. She had been running out of air inside. Every hour took a second and a year. Logically they were fine, they were just late. Pope had said 24 hours before panicking, but based on past events, the panic kinda came on it’s own. She just got them back and now it was like thinking they were dead all over again. 

She wasn’t going to cry.

She felt like barfing.

They had never been late before.

_Tick tock, Kie._

The door opened, heavy footsteps crossed the creaking wood. JJ lit his blunt by the steps. There was silence and smoke rings in the night. 

Eventually, he sat down next to her, passed it into her fingers without a word, and she pulled until her chest hurt. She was so tired. 

She was almost seventeen years old and she just wanted to rest. She just wanted to fucking be seventeen and forget about the gold and have her friends back. Why couldn’t they just be normal kids? For once. 

She blew out storm clouds and he watched from below.

“They’re okay, Kie.”

She nodded. 

“I mean it’s John B. He can survive anything. He’s got like 10 lives or something. Like a rat.” She wondered if he was trying to convince her or himself more. “They probably just got caught up macking, lost track of time, ya know?”

He was shooting for normal and hitting nervous, but she appreciated it anyway. 

“If that’s true, I’ll strangle them myself,” she smirked, and passed the blunt back. But if they actually put her through an extended anxiety attack to get hot and heavy in a motel room, there was a chance she could come unglued.

“Ah, Kie. Haven’t you ever been young, hot, and in love?” he sighed.

“Have you?”

He glanced at her and laughed for a moment, smoke slipping through teeth. “What do you think?” 

JJ’s “girlfriends” were like mayflies. 

She rolled her eyes. 

“Can’t blame ‘em too much,” he shrugged and ashed into a beer can on the table.

“Doesn’t stop me from being worried though,” she looked out over the dark yard and the shadows in the water. None of it felt like it used to anymore. “I’m fucking sick of being worried.”

“I know,” he sounded like he did. “Me too.”

She believed him. She took the roach and hit it twice before returning it and pulling her fingers through her hair. 

_Tik tok._

“Alright,” JJ breathed, putting the roach out on his boot and flicking it across the yard. She didn’t even think about yelling at him. “Come on.”

He stood and held his hand out to her. 

“What?” 

“Come on, get up.”

She was jerked to her feet and immediately spun under his finger. 

He was dancing with her.

“What are you doing?” She couldn’t keep the laughter from her voice.

He stepped around her comically, gyrating his hips and shimmying his shoulders. “Distracting you.”

Her heart swelled. Of course he was.

He led her away and back to him, fingers pressed to hers, back straight. Pool boy playing at being a gentleman. Her hand rested in his like it was supposed to be there. 

“You know how to waltz?” she snorted.

“Absolutely not.”

They moved. Wildly, light, close, far. Laughing and smiling and forgetting. They moved until she was too close, and he was all but wrapped around her and all they could do was sway. Then they bled together like ink on wet paper.

He held her tight enough to make her feel safe, and softly enough to make her feel precious. Oddly enough, it seemed perfectly JJ. 

And so she might have loved him. 

Right then, just like that. 

Rough boy with quick fists and an even quicker mouth. The one with a heart so secretly warm it might burn you. The one that danced with her on a porch in the dark to get her to smile. Holy shit, she loved him.

Her cheek was against his chest and his heartbeat was in her ear and it was her favorite sound. 

He dipped her, holding her waist against him. She held his shirt in her fingers and laughed. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to never let go of him. She could be spinning forever. 

Pope threw the door open, catching their laughter in his mouth. 

“They’re on the radio! They’re fine, they’re on the radio!”

She didn’t catch her breath, before he ran back inside, and JJ moved away from her.

“Told ya,” he grinned. He still looked sad, or tired, around his eyes. 

“Thank God.” 

She didn’t want to stop looking at him though. 

They turned toward the door, to their friends that were once more confirmed very much alive, just inside. The weight was off her shoulders and in her hands. 

“JJ,” she called, watching him look back at her, watching him raise a brow. 

“Thanks.” 

Very eloquent, Kie. But hey right then wasn’t the prime moment to inform your best bro you wanna mack his face off, in a long term kinda way. 

Shit. 

“Always, Kie,” he winked. It sent a strike of lightning through the bones of her ribcage. 

She was a goner. 

.

.

.

5.  
Everyone was alive.

For once since the treasure hunt began, it was really good. 

Her friends were safe. The gold was safe. They were all back together and the night was young. The OBX felt complete again, with her Pogues back together and up to the normal kind of teenage nonsense.

Expensive champagne was poured into plastic flutes. She hugged John B. for a lifetime and Sarah for two. She couldn’t look away from them. She watched JJ cry and Pope talk for twelve straight minutes without stopping. She shouldn’t stop smiling.

Within the hour, everyone was drunk, stoned, or, in JJ’s case, both. They were allowed to be happy again, and they were so fucking happy. It went on all night. Stories followed by jokes followed by dancing. 

Pogue style.

She shimmied around the sand with Sarah, linked by their pinky fingers. She made the mental note to appreciate Sarah Cameron a whole hell of a lot more than she had. They smiled like kids and she was glad whatever this last year had been, it brought her back. For good. That bitch was stuck with her for life now.

JJ wedged himself in between them. They danced like giddy teens sandwiched together. JJ was the ice cream between two cookies. 

“This is my dream,” he said dreamily, looking between the two of them.

His hair was tousled and his shirt was unbuttoned and he grinned at her like he was up to no good. It made her want to be up to no good too. 

She put her arms around his neck. 

He put his around her waist.

She had thought a lot since coming to her revelation that she wanted to kiss his stupid face off and she had decided to ignore it. Definitely not the best way to deal with anything, but up until that moment exactly it had gone just fine. Because at that moment she felt his fingers brush her bare sides.

When that happened, she was past a point of logical thought and right in the red zone.

He pulled her hips closer and she couldn’t stop looking at his eyes, into his eyes… He looked back. Blue eyes she hadn’t seen look quite like that before. She grinned at him because fuck it, she loved him and they were alive, and not in immediate danger, and he made her happy. He grinned too, tilting forward to touch her forehead with his.

It would have been the sweetest thing in the world to tilt her chin just so and kiss him. 

She ran her thumb along his jaw.

She could do it.

She could do it right then and know...

He looked down at her lips once, then twice, something very old and very warm hidden in them.

And then Sarah fucking screamed beside them and his face was gone.

John B. threw his girlfriend over his shoulder as she squealed and punched at his back. Young love.

She looked back at JJ, but the moment was gone and something else was happening. He was still looking at her, he still had an arm around her waist, but his expression was wrong. He looked like he was uncomfortable or about to throw up. Or maybe both.

Like he had realized something, something he didn’t like. 

He just looked at her, blinking. 

He dropped his arm.

He took a step back. 

Something felt like it was being pulled away. She wanted it back. 

He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair and then he walked away. 

She didn’t follow him. She wouldn’t have even if she could move from the spot she was in. She watched him walk down to the water and farther away down the shore. Still, she couldn’t move. She had been so close to kissing him… 

Well _fuck._

Ten minutes passed and he didn’t come back. So she figured she’d probably done stupid something to fuck up. Got too caught up in the moment, even for JJ. 

The thing about having a crush on JJ, was that it was safe. It was only a hypothetical day dream because JJ would be the last person to fall in love at all, much less with her. It was fine.

Or at least it was until she got starry eyed and stupid.

“Well shit,” she groaned. 

She picked up a beer and walked to the water. 

(Sarah watched her go.)

It was warm between her toes, warmer than she thought it would be. She stood there, feet in seafoam, and she thought. 

She loved JJ, but if loving JJ meant the chance of losing him, she could pretend she didn’t. 

Or she could jump off the cliff. 

Metaphorically or literally, she hadn’t decided. 

She cracked open the beer and drank until she had to breathe. It made her eyes water. Whatever. She drank the rest.

Waves crashed in front of her. 

At some point he came back, following his footprints back in the sand. He walked up next to her and didn’t say anything. He offered her the Juul in his thin fingers, a peace offering from one JJ Maybank. She shook her head. And the feelings got thicker. 

JJ had made her feel… a fucking lot of things, but he had never made her feel awkward. 

She just had to go and think about kissing him. 

“Kie,” he started. She finally managed to look at him. He looked like conflict, crease between his brows, and that dip in his lower lip. His hand ran through his hair. “I’m sorry.”

She swallowed. It felt a lot like a rejection. “Why?”

“I,” he groaned and scrubbed his face. “I can’t do this.”

It was a sigh on the wind, but boy did it feel heavy as bricks.

“Oh.” That was all she could say. Just “oh” and “okay”.

What else was she gonna say? Reset button back to normal. That’s all there was to it.

“You can’t…” he seemed about as out of words as she was. “I can’t keep doing this or I’m gonna lose my fucking mind, alright?” 

_Ouch._ She thought she might have physically flinched. Rejection was fine, but that seemed a bit much, maybe. _Just dig the knife in deeper, JJ._

“Doing what, JJ?” She tried, really hard, to keep her tone even.

He looked at her and there was fucking destruction behind those eyes. Conflict. Pain. Emotion. He looked like someone on the edge of… something, some cliff of reason. She wanted to run away. She wanted to forget she asked. He bit his lip.

“This,” he gestured in the space between them, at invisible threads. “Fuck... Kie, I-”

“Alright, I get it.” She didn’t really need a list of all the ways he didn’t love her. She got the gist of it. 

“No,” he laughed. Actually laughed. “You _don’t_ , Kie.”

His laughter wasn’t funny. If anything it was a tragic sound. It pleaded with her. So she didn’t walk away just yet. So she watched him go through the words in his head carefully, all the while filling her lungs with saltwater. 

“I can’t dance with you, and look at you, and be so close to you and just pretend…”

She swallowed. 

“... that I don’t want to kiss you all the fucking time.”

She blinked.

“What?”

“I know the fucking rules and shit. And I mean, I’m a real mess,” he couldn’t stop talking now. His hands shook in his hair. “And you’re you. And right now is probably a really bad time to say this, but I can’t take it anymore. I tried to ignore it for so long, dude. I tried to play it off, I really did, but fuck, Kie. I can’t be near you like that and keep pretending that I’m not crazy about you. Because I am. In like a really embarrassing way.”

She literally could not speak. She tried, but her mouth opened and nothing came out. She looked like a fish, mouth gulping at the air. Because, well, holy shit.

“Fuck,” he said, taking in her expression and prolonged silence. He looked down and away. She wished she could say anything. “Sorry. I don’t know why I said that. I shouldn’t have said that. Um, I’m drunk. Just pretend I didn’t do… any of that, yeah? It’s all good.”

“JJ-” She found her tongue.

“It’s fine, Kie. I don’t know what I’m saying.” He was going to walk away, away from her.

“JJ.”

“Hm?” He was ready to rip out of his skin and sprint away. 

“I don’t…”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Forget about it,” he tried to smirk. “We’re good.”

“JJ” she huffed. “You’re an idiot.”

“Alright. Okay, way to shoot me while I’m down, Kie.” 

“I’m an idiot,” she felt the smile warming her lips. “I _do_ love you...”

“I know, you love us all,” he said it like it was physically painful. “Family unit. Pogues for life. It’s-”

“Oh my god, JJ, would you let me talk,” she finally sighed. 

He shut up. The blanket of silence wrapped around their shoulders and she grabbed his hand. 

“That’s not what I meant.”

He looked from her to their clasped fingers and back again, like she was a mirage and he was once again a dying man, at her feet. “That’s not…”

“No,” she shook her head. Then, she jumped off the cliff and kissed him.

She hit the water smiling. 

He was only frozen for a moment and then his mouth softened under hers and he pulled her closer. Always closer. She could feel his fingers on her neck, tilting her chin. He tasted like champagne and cigarettes, and he felt like fucking summer. 

Like gold.

She kissed him forever, because that’s how long she’d been waiting, and it still didn’t feel like long enough. 

When they broke the surface, she was dizzy. 

“I’m an idiot,” he sighed, breathless and soft. His thumb touched her lower lip, tracing the line of her mouth. He looked in awe of her. And he was.

“Yeah,” she whispered. 

“You are too.”

“Yeah,” she smiled. He smiled back and she thought, making JJ smile like that forever was something she was very interested in doing. 

“You’re not fucking with me right?”

“No.”

“Good,” he nodded and that time, he was the one to cup her cheek and kiss her. He kissed her through grins and happy sighs. He lifted her up by the waist to spin around and still his mouth pressed to hers and they were two drunk idiots falling in love on a beach. 

It was good.

Someone hollered. Someone else laughed. 

“About time!” Sarah’s voice rang across the sand. 

She flipped them off as JJ pressed his nose into her hair.

.

.

.

(+1)  
It was Midsummer’s again, a whole year later, and she wasn’t dancing with JJ. It was something that might have shocked or upset past Kiara, depending on how far back you went. It would have made one of them happy.

Like every year, she did not want to be there and like every year her mother had made her. But this year wasn’t exactly like “every other year”. 

No, that year she wasn’t in the crowd, and she wasn’t dancing with a crazy blonde. 

But that was only because she was making out with him in a closet.

Which turned out to be infinitely better.

They were tipsy, like usual, and up to no good, like usual, kissing lazily around goofy smiles and whispers. She leaned into him, pulling at his hair enough to make him groan. He ran his hand up her thigh until she shivered. Clumsy tongues, ticklish sides.

“Wait,” she pushed away from him. “Shh.” 

“What?” 

She thought she heard footsteps outside. 

“Be quiet.”

He did, but only because his mouth was then occupied with nipping at her neck.

“JJ,” she giggled. She wanted to push him away. 

(No, she didn’t.) 

She gripped his shoulder instead.

And then the broom closet was flooded with light. They froze. 

Pope stood in the doorway, hands on his hips.

“Hey buddy,” JJ grinned, blinking in the new light. Slowly he moved away from Kiara and straightened himself up like it was any old situation. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“This is cliche even for you,” Pope sighed. 

“Thanks, man. Always looking to outdo myself, ya know?” JJ smiled. She wanted to lick it off. 

“Kie, your mom’s looking for you.”

“Shit,” she pinched her nose. Not something she wanted to deal with. Her mother couldn’t be happy with her simply going to the damn party, she had to actually be seen there. More than once. 

“John B bet me $30 you guys were macking on the beach. I said you were inside,” Pope said simply. He seemed pretty proud of himself about being right.

“$30?”

“Yeah, well Kie doesn’t like to get sand in-” 

“JJ,” she huffed, shoving his shoulder to shut him up. “How long has she been looking?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes.”

“Great.” She tried to right herself. “Stall her five more minutes. Tell her I’m in the bathroom or something.”

“10 minutes,” JJ whined and tried to pull her back to him. His fingers wiggled against her stomach and she squirmed, trying not to laugh.

“You guys are worse than John B and Sarah,” Pope sighed. She honestly doubted it. They were way less nauseating. And way cooler.

JJ let go of her only to grab the door handle. “Thanks for the info, dude!” he said, giving him a thumbs up and then slamming the door closed in his face. 

She giggled and let him kiss her so sweetly she thought she might melt. He was so fucking good at it. His lips knew hers like a map, a treasure map and her small sighs were the prize he wanted. There were not many things she could say she liked more than being kissed by JJ. She could do it forever. 

“We have to go,” she whispered. 

“Mhmm,” he mumbled, but he didn’t move. 

“JJ.”

“Kie.”

She looked at him, or the shape of him that she could make out in the dim light. A shadow with saltwater eyes. She wound her fingers around the hair at his neck. 

“Two dances,” she kissed the corner of his jaw. “Some good natured loitering,” his cheek. “And a conversation with my parents,” the corner of his mouth. “Then, we can ditch.”

“You’re killing me.”

She bit her lip. “Please.”

“One dance, I don’t break Top’s nose, and I tell your mom that she looks smoking.”

“JJ,” she warned. 

“Fine, that she looks pretty,” he hugged her waist, forehead hovering over hers, as he bent close. He kissed the tip of her nose and whatever resolve she had bled out of her.

“Deal,” she said. 

They showed back up to the party twelve minutes later. He kept his promise not to assault a Kook, but they both found the other two requests far too demanding and five minutes after they crawled out of the broom closet, he was chasing her across the beach and pulling her towards the moon.

It was a different kind of dancing.


End file.
